VERY PECULIAR.

Southland Times, Issue 19502, 17 March 1925, Page 6

VERY PECULIAR.

The Health Department’s campaign against infantile paralysis continues to excite interest in the departmental mind, which seems to work in a peculiarly irresponsible manner at times. When the disease appeared in Christchurch, children were compelled to undergo an examination before travelling to an infected area, but were permitted to move freely to districts in which the disease had not made its appearance. Later the Department’s precautionary measures were tightened, and the opening of the schools was postponed, so that children under the age of sixteen years should not have to congregate in buildings. After this came the abandonment of Territorial camps and the cancellation of the National Rifle Association’s meeting at Trentham, because the disease was still prevalent and because these congregations of people over the age of sixteen might be inimical to the campaign against infantile paralysis. At the same time the principal of a Girls’ High School is permitted to hold a class for pupils over the age of sixteen years, and when this permission is withdrawn a Technical High School in the same town is able to announce the resumption of its evening classes, and to ask students to attend for enrolment! In addition, pupil teachers and adult teachers are collected for refresher courses with the full sanction of the Department. It is all very interesting, and very peculiar—but it is, of course, the Health Department’s method.